god has a purpose for me (part 3)

to read part 1 go here
to read part 2 go here

the idea, for example, that god sometimes spoke through people became, god spoke solely through people--then god spoke through certain people, then his people, and ultimately through him, through bob alone.

during the early years, he spent a great deal of time mentoring me in regard to becoming more “christ-like” an ideal with which i was very familiar. he helped me to understand the importance of surrounding myself with those who were christ-like--his followers.

then, in a hidden effort to begin moving me away from the belief in a supernatural god, he began to move me toward the idea of god as a metaphor. christ-like meant trying to live the example that christ set...but, beware of the mistakes that christ made...the ones that got him killed. “jesus could have done so much more if he hadn’t f#cked-up and gotten himself killed," he claimed.

bob was christ-like and had nearly been destroyed by making the same mistakes. this, he explained, was the reason his programs had been shut-down. he, like christ, had allowed himself to fall into the trap of martyrdom. by learning to parse the good from the bad, i could avoid this trap. he would show me how.

he also spoke to me about the concept of spiritual warfare. there existed, according to bob, a very real evil “force” in this world, "the dark side” as he termed it. we should be on guard against the dark side. "whenever we are on the right track, truly doing good, the dark side will rear its ugly head. therefore, when others are questioning you, when your thoughts become doubtful, whenever, you begin to think that his (bob's) way is not truth, you know you are doing good work. the dark side is trying to stop you. therefore, you have to stop those negative thoughts." this is what bob taught me.

in time, a lot of good people became a part of the dark side, friends, former staff, those who spoke out against bob, my parents and siblings, society at large, organized religion, and finally god.

after he had drawn me in far enough, he became overtly vicious. once, in another hotel room, he looked me in the eyes. “we’re going to have a man to man talk...” he said. “the man (pointing to himself) to a man (pointing at me).” what followed was a screaming barrage of insults and demeaning remarks. i was devastated. no one in my life had ever talked to me the way that he talked to me that day. finally, as i sat, head in hands sobbing, he “put me back together." he did this because he loved me. he was "having my back." over time, these attacks became more frequent and more vicious. i learned to fear them.

i learned to “confront” people as well—to “have their backs”. i became vicious.

it was over a decade from the time i met bob until he was finally able to get me to completely, as a matter of public ritual, renounce god and all prior beliefs. it was absolutely necessary i learned, following a verbal beating. my unwillingness to let go of god was destroying my wife and daughter.

“let go of your f#cked-up god bullsh!t or let go of them [my wife and daughter]. you’re dragging them down with you.”

i can still remember the day that i did it. i was in the bedroom he and his wife shared. i had broken all meaningful contact with the outside world. I hadn't spoken to my parents or siblings for years. i spent my days and nights doing bob's work--part of a group of followers that slaved in order to support his lavish lifestyle.

i was sitting on their ottoman. they were both present.

there was no god. nothing out there. now, i was finally free.

from what had i been freed? the fear, the anxiety, the pain, the hardship. what i didn’t realize at the time was that i’d already been freed from these, years earlier. i didn’t see that the fear, pain, anxiety and hardship i felt were not the result of my flawed beliefs, but were instead the direct result of my involvement with bob. more acutely, that he had purposefully and systematically, planted those undesirable feelings and phobias within me in order to keep me subservient to him.

like screwtape to wormwood, he had already instructed me on how i could use god as a means to an end, rather than faith being an end in and of itself. now god became a way to control others. a way to make others “accountable to the unenforceable laws”...for their own good, of course.

i secretly and silently grieved over my final severance with god. i kept telling myself that my grief was my unconscious attempt to sabotage my own growth. i thought about the beautiful religious music that had been so dear to me. i also mourned the loss of the religious stories and parables that had inspired me time and time again.

it seems strange, but until i finally cut-off god completely, i hadn’t thought about those things in years. of course, like so many things in bob’s cult, my grief had to be hidden. we were not allowed to feel pain. pain was a sign of weakness. to express any feeling other than joy and enthusiasm meant risking punishment. and punishment could be brutal.

i suffered alone.

(more to come)

screwtape and wormwood from "the screwtape letters" by c.s. lewis